Mums that scuba – balancing your scuba career

A recent post in an online forum mums that scuba, caught my attention. The forum was aimed at a specific niche group of ladies, mums that scuba. Whilst a few years ago I wouldn’t have imagined a group like that popping up. Now with so many people finding their voice on social media its become a popular place for like minded women and other individuals to express their views. They can ask questions that they may be uncomfortable to ask elsewhere find out information.

The particular post that caught my attention was the inevitable question about “how do you do it?”. How many mums out there if any have a full career in scuba? If so, how?

So how?

Now, this is one of those very open ended questions to me. This is because invariably, my answer is “you just do it”. You can’t really explain how you time manage, juggle and try desperately to keep things balanced, you just do. Things aren’t always perfectly balanced, certainly not in the sense that they are balanced the way you want them to be. You may find yourself working to much one week, not focusing on your job the next. But the important thing is that you have time for being a mum. And it’s an extra super power I think as one of the many mums that scuba.

Being one of the “Mums that scuba”

Being a mum is a huge deal. Anyone that says otherwise needs their head examined. We, as women have this responsibility, for these little individuals and no matter what we do, we will feel that we aren’t doing enough. That’s just part of being a mum in general. If I’m not with my child I feel guilty. That’s hard to deal with but I have come to the realization that I just have to work through that myself and then make sure that the time I do have with them is the best it can be.

By working in scuba, and having time to myself, it is actually easier (or I find) to spend more quality time with my child. If I am in a better place and happier then my child senses that and we have more fun.

What I find helps for me is being very structured. I am lucky enough that I can set my hours with my work, which is something I have worked towards over time.

Balancing your life as one of the “mums that scuba”

Now I know that some of you are wondering, why am I talking about this? For those of you that know me well, I keep my work and my personal life very separate. This is because in all honestly, who wants to take a serious tec instructor course with someone who is “distracted” with being a mum? Good question and sad as it is, it is one that has come up before. So now, the main complaint I do actually get, is that I never post any pictures of my darling daughter. This is because, I try to keep the two parts of my life so separate.

I don’t want to put off potential students who may think I don’t take things seriously, and believe me that is a thing that people may think. At the same time, there is only so much I want to share on social media as well, you know, it’s the internet.

So in summary…

Anyway, back to the original thoughts and question, how do you balance everything? How do you do it? With all of these things to take into account I think the primary thought is, you have to want to do it. Like really want to do it, full passion, and a serious drive. Making my scuba business successful took a lot of thinking outside the box and taking risks. Looking for a niche and taking a chance. Not every plan works but you at least you can say you tried.

A big second, is support, whether it’s from your friends, work colleagues, family, it make a huge difference. Yes, you can do it by yourself but having that ear to bend at the end of a day is a huge thing. As I mentioned earlier, a big part of it for me is very much structuring what you are doing. As in, I am dedicating my morning to family time, afternoon to teaching. Maybe it’s more time to working in the day and less time family, more family time evening, whichever, but you set yourself a time and you stick to it. That to me, is the only way you can achieve any time of healthy balance.

Think of this as well, how amazing is it for your child to travel and experience such an amazing way of life so young? It is an awesome opportunity and experience they can have by the fact that you could be working in some mind blowing places as a scuba instructor!

So, in summary and to all of you amazing ladies out there working in scuba, or even in other full time jobs, and being mums. How do we do it? Pure determination and awesomeness. That’s my thought anyway!